My first grow: Big Bud, Durban Poison and some freebies

[Aratilis]

Ok its been a week or so since I made an entry on this journal and boy! A lot of fucked up things happened this holidays. Before I show and describe the conditions of my plants and all that I would like to share a little mishap. Yesterday I was shopping for some more CFLs as you can see on the photo below I added supplemental light for the grow. I put it over the only big bud that germinated so it could catch up with the others that are over a week older.

This is how I rigged the CFLs. I shop for dirt cheap table lamps I think it was around 200 Philippine peso that’s a little over 4 bucks If you convert it in USD. The specification at the bottom and the sticker on the lamp says: 220V 60 watts Max. So I bought 4 pieces and I also got myself 4 55 watt CFLs and since the lamp is small I went to make a poor man’s reflectors. Here’s a pic of the piece of shit

So all is well, well...that’s what I though. I went out with my girlfriend to get me some more cheap lamps for the grow room because I reckon it’s a fucking clever idea! Until my house almost went on fire!!!

Here’s the burned concrete post.

I got a call from my neighbor that the electrical post outside my house was sparking like welding machine and the shit like that. I was fretting to go home thinking that my house could set on fire and the grow room was going to be culprit.

So there we were, we got home in no time...me and my girl friend looking at the sparks of electricity that may cause fire to not only my place but the whole fucking neighborhood. I went to check the break out box and its pretty much ok , I turned it off and call for the electric company for help. A truck came with a crane on it and all that but I notice there’s a police bike accompanying the truck. WTF!!! This is going to cause me a lot of trouble! What if they check my place of what went wrong? staying there for while made me think that’s it’s the grow room for sure. Good thing they didn’t went inside because they found out that power wires and the transformer was the problem. I almost shit in my pants I kid you not ☺

1 of the 4 CFL went busted though. Because the power was flickering for a few minutes or so… that’s what I was told.

but just to make sure for now I might just go with my 400 watt HPS/MH only. do you guys think that the table lamp didnt handle the CFLs wattage? here's the pic of other lamps they will be sitting on the cabinet for a while.

Anyhow...enough of that shitty night I had, there's no moral of the story anyhow! except - just to be sure dont buy super cheap table lamps and put 55 watt cfls in it

here are my plants. They're 26 days old now and almost all of them have curled up and yellow colored leaf tips. I backed off giving nutes as for now but still has the same problem it's because of the off Ph level I think. But a least from 8.7 now its 7.7 though its still fucked up high I know.

this is the big bud and the 55 watt CFL lamp at work

here are some other pics.

the reason for my high ph is sphagnum moss in my soil that I thought was peat moss.

thanks for those who dropped by and for those who posted answers to my questions

 

[Hierba]

Hahaha wooow crazy story man!!

 

[Cherma]

four20friend, who are the soil guys?

Here I am back from some Family time Katayama. Watch out next time on the Perlite mix and over doing it. Looks like electrical is under control. Whew!!!
I personally have 30 years growing cannabis in soils, outdoors & indoors. The plants above are looking healthy save some minor curling. Maybe some over watering there, and drying up with too much Perlite.
How were and are you testng the PH? In the soil condition, water?

 

[Aratilis]

I have a digital pen type PH tester, Milwakee PH 600, I heard about it here on this site and reviews were pretty good. There's a certification that says its calibrated to 4.0 PH calibration solution but just to make sure I bought also a PH test kit the one with the paper strip that changes color depending on the PH level. The reading of the digital tester and the PH kit is the same so Im pretty sure that PH level wasnt wrong and its really fucked up high. I test the first run off from the pots, I only water them PH adjusted tap water, I aerate the water with aquarium filter pump an hour before using it. I havent been giving them nutes for over 2 weeks now some plants are geting better but Im just second guessing. Should I continue giving plain water or add 1/4 strength nutes? I read that fertilizers makes the soil acidic and I need a bit of acid to lower my PH.

Happy Holidays Cherma!

 

[Be Irie]

You should ease slowly back into the nutes. Some strains are pickier then others and don't like a lot of nutes.. Some don't like chemicals... Just adjust them a little bit each watering or everyother watering until you find the sweet spot. Keep an eye for changes good or bad...

 

[Aratilis]

thanks Be! i would try that.

And... Do you think organic fert is better than Chemical based? I have both though I've been using the Chemical based one. the organic is 10-8-5 or something like that and the chemical fert is 30-10-10. We dont have fox farm and Hesi and stuff like that so I just have to make do with what's available in the market.

 

[Be Irie]

I think if I were you I would start out with the organic nutes and see how the plants react. If they act like they need a bit more then you may want to think about adding some chems to the mix.

 

[Aratilis]

Then organic it is .

Here's the weird part I tested my Ph adjusted water then add nutes to it, it went even lower! That's why I dont understand now why I have such high soil Ph.

my soil consist of sphagnum moss, seedling mix with a little pumice, perlite and vermiculite

 

[Aratilis]

day 33:

i have been using organic fertilizer now and I think they like it more than the chemical based. Il be posting some pics tom i hope they're still some of you watching this grow I need a bit of advice here.

 

[Aratilis]

day 37

Im close at getting the Ph right, from 8.5 a few weeks ago now my soil Ph is close to 7.5 still a bit high but way better than 8+

I notice that they seem to like the organic based ferts and from the way they look, its quite ovious that they're happier.

Im on day 37 now, most of the plants are over 17 inches tall, except the week younger freebie plants. Should I start flowering? I have 7 feet headroom in my grow area and all the plants are hybrids dont know the ratio though.

thanks!

 

[pilyoto]

Nice... I'll be keeping an eye on this to see how it goes. Please keep us updated. Maybe one of these days I'll grow my own too. Cheers from Manila!

 

[Be Irie]

Anytime now would probably be good. None of them look like they have a lot of sativa in them.. 20" seems like a good height + or - a few inches, you should end up with 3-5 foot plants. You should try and get that PH dialed in a little bit more, you are getting there.... Nice work...

 

[tanno20]

there such gd looking plants lol!!!

am thinkin bout growing durban poison too but mine will be outside tho cuz its i think was breed for outside cultivation so i think uu should start the flowering period now cause there gonna get really due to high stavia gene. well this is what is said on nirvana.

hope u get some purple bud there cause they tend to go a lil purple near the end lol

 

[riverrat]

I had problems with durban poison germing too. I was growing outdoors and only 1 female survived out of 10 but man some of the best outdoor i have had the pleasure of burnin

 

[Aratilis]

ok update, day 01 floweing

today I went for it, I switch to HPS and il go flowering. In a few days il take some Macro shots so you stoners can help me sex the plants.

Here are the durban poisons:

https://www.420magazine.com/gallery/data/500/DSC_5889.JPG

Im getting all these yellow leaves at the bottom is this normal? Im thinking there are some more issues here than a high PH some of my plants look sick.

a lot of yellow fan leaves on this one

This one is the tallest i think at around 20 inches.

the freebies:

this one is pretty sick in a literal meaning! lots of yellow leaves and brown spots too.

rust and brown spots on the leaves.

heres another freebie seed:

and this one has a lot of issues as well, leaves are culred, droopy and wavy all at the same time.

any info about these signs of sickness will be greatly appreciated. t

 

[flyfishinrock]

until the ph is more stable expect a wide variety of deficiencies, don't add more nutes just keep working on the ph and maybe flush it. If you add a cup of fine dolomite lime to the soil and mix it very well your ph wont go above 7. The sphagnum moss ph is usually between 3.0 - 5.0, just dosent make sense to me why its so high.
Cant wait to watch em bud, good luck

 

[Aratilis]

yeah thats the thing that i dont understand flyfishin, its going down little by little though my last run off was 7.3

 

[Aratilis]

i have a question, if i water them with a Ph which is lower than usual, say... 5.0 will that help lower my soil Ph or is that more harmful to the plants?

Thanks again stoners !

 

[Aratilis]

I still have the same problem my ph issues, I hope some of you can take a peek on this thread so i could get some advice. See, my problem has always been my Ph spiking up. I'm using cane vinegar to lower the Ph of the water I use to them. Then just about now, I read in some other forum that vinegar is not really a good Ph downer because it really doesnt stabilize your soil, its only good for a day or two. They said to try testing the ph of you water; adjusted using vinegar, then test it again after a day or so and it will spike up .5 - 1.0! It crazy man, are there any other alternatives aside from vinegar? we dont have hydro shop in this country so commercial PH solutions is out of the question.

Any suggestion will be appreciated.

 

[flyfishinrock]

hmmmm I just posted here; but its not here............
anyways what I posted was:
Try using epsom salts in your water, the sulpher (its magnesium sulfate) is what many ph adjusters use for the buffer, it should help stabilize the ph though its not an up or down adjuster. does that make any sense to you guys? its early here. Good luck